How much did Adobe pay for Behance?

Updated: Earlier this morning, Adobe Systems, the San Jose-based creative software giant that is currently undergoing a makeover for the cloud-era announced that it was buying New York City-based design-oriented community, Behance. Since then, many have been wondering how much did Adobe shell out?

At least two sources have told me that that Adobe paid well north of $100 million. (Added on December 21: A well placed source tells me that the final number is closer to $150 million.) What may seem like a lot of money is reflection on reality of the modern software business — not only does a company need to offer software via the cloud, it also has to have a community of engaged users to keep enhancing the value of that offering. Behance team makes those points in a post on Behance blog.

Creation should be inherently collaborative – and must evolve more frequently than typical software upgrade cycles. If the tools we use to create are connected with how we showcase and discover creative work, we can help usher in a new era of idea exchange and collaborative creation.

David Wadhwani, who spearheaded this acquisition on behalf of Adobe writes on the company blog:

As we start to roll out increasingly integrated workflows across the services, you’ll start to see the benefits of combining the creation of content with the ability to seek feedback, showcase your work and distribute it across devices.

Behance was started in 2006 and raised $6.5 million from Union Square Ventures, Jeff Bezos, Dave Morin, Yves Behar, Chris Dixon and several others. It had a million members and was host to three million projects.